Valuing the ‘new normal’? Housing markets under COVID-19: Insights from a hybrid hedonic repeat sales model

This study considers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sub-national housing markets in Wales, focusing on the contribution of environmental and productivity attributes on house price change. Using a hybrid hedonic/repeat sales framework, we examine trends before, during, and after the pandemic. Initially, higher-quality environmental and productivity attributes were associated with a positive premium in price growth, while lower quality attributes were associated with a negative premium. However, during the pandemic’s second phase, these effects reversed but positive premiums for higher-quality attributes did not fully unwind during the transition to less acute phases of the pandemic. When we disaggregate the analysis for the urban-rural gradient, we find that both contexts placed a premium on high quality environmental housing, but lower quality productivity attributes negatively affected urban areas. The contribution of the study lies in revealing the complex, evolving and unequal relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic, housing preferences, and prices that, in our study context, have been subject to much conjecture but with little empirical investigation.